Dragonshelf and the Drover XLII

     Lager was shooting in fountains around them, but the pirate threw his mask over his right shoulder.

     PLEASE, CAPTAIN DEAR, PUT ON YOUR MASK

     I DON’T THINK I CAN GO ON.  I’D REATHER DROWN THAT LOOK AT MORE COPIES OF THAT UGLY LIBRARIAN

     “There, my pet,” said the emperor, shloorking at the last liquid in the corners of his beaker.  A tangle of tiny limbs tried to brace itself against his suction.

     Nubry had no strength to answer.  Only the blue cuffs holding her head up between her knees made it possible for her to watch the screen.  She did think that it would be appropriate for any other pirate to drown in a room filled with beer.  And at least Bott wouldn’t be able to say he hadn’t had a drink in three days.

     His Imperial Worship directed his chair over to the copy machine and reached through his security shield with his straw, to scratch her under the chin.  A tiny arm dribbled from the end of the straw to slip along her throat.  “You do realize that if he drowns, there will be no need for any further copies of you.”

     Nubry could only blink by way of reply, but a voice from a hitherto silent speaker said, “I recommend that you take the copier with you when you go.”

     The Emperor glared over his prisoner’s head.  “Keep your recommendations to yourself.  I may not go, in fact.  This three-ship complex suits me very well.”

     “I do not require augmentation to provide space for all your games,” the Drover’s computer replied.

     “The Panoply adds to your presence, dear boat,” the Emperor told the Drover, easing his chair a little away from the copy machine.  “And the Rhododendron sadly needs my personal touch.  I’d like to find out whether this Sheriff can top the number  of copies this duckling provided, before SHE begs for death.”

     Nubry blinked again.  “Nevertheless,” the ship continued, “I repeat my recommendation to take the copier along.”

     “I’m not leaving.”  The Imperial chin crumpled a bit as it pouted defiance.

     “I was not talking to you.”

     The Imperial Chair backed into its usual position.  “Well, this little rag doll isn’t going anywhere.  She has a little work left to do, providing a reason for our merry pirate to go on playing our game.”  His thumb jammed down on the copy button.

     Nubry did nothing.  She could feel the boosted power of the copy machine rippling each muscle and jerking at every bone.  But she lacked any strength to respond.

     Pudgy Imperial hands rubbed together.  Then ridges began to appear in his forehead.  His head tipped up, as if he was listening to something unexpected.  His chair spun toward the Drover’s speaker.

     “What’s that?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at the big screen.

     Nubry rolled her eyes up, despite her spine apparently curling into spirals.  Bott was holding a light blue card to the foods computer slot.

     “It’s an Imperial Override Card, Your Worship,” the ship’s computer replied.

     “I know that!”  An Imperial fist swept the Imperial Beaker to the floor, where it went to pieces.

     “Then why did you ask?”

     “Where did the pirate get one?”  An Imperial fist pounded on the console, starting another copy before the first one was fully formed.  Nubry’s skull felt heavy as a Stevvian Encyclopaedia, but she kept her eyes fixed on the screen.

     “Weren’t you informed, Your Worship?  The pirate had a wide array of cards on him when captured.”

     The light flooding the lager-filled room changed color.  Nubry could not understand why this upset the Emperor as much as it did.  His fist came down three times, ordering three more copies.  “They didn’t mention an Override Card!”  The fist came down again and ordered another copy.  Nubry’s stomach and brain seemed to be trying to change places.

     One thing kept her from collapse: something was going wrong for the emperor, and right for the pirate.  No matter what Bott did with her books, he had to escape.

     Meanwhile, Dassie was trying to reason with His Imperial Worship.  “Did you tell the guards to look for an Override Card?”

     “That’s classified information!”  The fist pounded again and again on the copy button.  “I can’t tell people what the Override Card looks like!  I’d have pirates all over the place!”

     The fountains of lager were shutting down.  “Then how could anyone tell you the lummox had one, if they didn’t know what to look for?”

     It was difficult to appeal to the Emperor’s sense of fair play, since he had none.  The fist came down on the copy button again.  Nubry felt as if she had been turned inside out and lowered into a nest of acid worms.

     “You know what it looks like!  And you knew he had one!”

     “I did.  Your worship neglected to ask me about it.”

     “How could I….”  Imperial heels kicked the front of the chair as Imperial fingers groped in a pocket.  A light blue card slid into a slot below the copy button.  “Never mind that.  Just DO something!”

     The card popped back out of the slot.  “I am sorry, Your Worship.  Even an Imperial Override Card cannot override an Imperial Overrode Card.”

     A moment of silence followed, punctuated by a series of pink lights which switched on and then off around the room.  “In the case of two people using Imperial Override Cards,” Dassie said, “I must first obey the orders of the first card inserted.  After that, it is up to my own discretion to decide which of the users is more in keeping with my design and elegance.”

     The little control room was silent for another second.  The Imperial underlip stuck out.  “And?”

     “Pretty close in this case.  But I have chosen the scruffy lummox over the gross degenerate.”

     “You…you scow!”  Imperial fists hit a dozen buttons at once.  The light blue card flopped to the floor.

     Nubry glanced from it to the Emperor to the big screen, but found it all too much to comprehend.  The copies of herself on the floor were behaving strangely.  The trap door, instead of opening to dump them somewhere, had opened upward to allow two previous copies, who had been dumped while Bott was still flying the fake Dragonshelf, to return.  They all looked very unwell, limbs flopping or hanging limp.  But those who had hands that worked were smoothing back their hair from their foreheads and looking at their original in the copier.

     Then, one by one, they rose a little into the air and flew toward the prisoner.  Something had obviously gone wrong with the copy machine.  Instead of producing new Nubrys it was sucking the copies back into her, reinforcing her energy instead of sapping it.  It hurt, but not in the way making the copies had hurt.  This felt more like a stretch of the muscles after spending a day hauling boxes of books.

     What did it mean?  Was it something Bott had ordered?  But how would he know she was here?  Was it something the Emperor had done accidentally, or was this another cruel plan?  He must know what he was doing.  Did he?

     He certainly did not.  He was still arguing with Dassie.  Nubry looked from the Imperial chair to the screen, to find out what Bott and the women were doing now.  As she did so, though, the screen blinked off.

     “What’s that?”  The Emperor could not msiss the loss of so large a light source.  “What’s that?”

     He swung the chair.  To his left and right, other screens and lights were blinking off.  “You pucid, crifting robot kite!  You turn all that right back on!  I’ll have you scrapped and melted down into tailspikes!”

     “I’m sorry, Your Worship.  But while you were spitting on your console, the lummox has been giving orders.”

     ”I’ll show all of you who gives orders aboard this ship!”  Two fists jammed down on another console.  “Sheriff!  Sheriff!  Listen to me!”

     “That’s been shut off,” said the ship’s computer.

     One half of the room was completely dark.  The Imperial chair floated over to a wall panel.  An imperial fist thudded into a dim square.

     “Sheriff!  Sherrif!  Where are you?”  The Imperial voice was a touch higher than usual.  “Answer me!  That is an Imperial command!  Sheriff?”

     “That’s been shut off,” the ship’s computer informed him.

     The chair wobbled to the door of the game room.  When the door did not open, the Emperor reached for the emergency handle.

     “The emergency exit function has been disabled,” the Drover informed him.  “The lummox has turned off power to the entire maze area.  We will soon be completely….”

    The Emperor spun his chair around.  “What do you mean?  This room isn’t part of the maze area!  Is it?  Answer me!  Ship!  Ship!”

     The rest of the lights in the room shut off.  “Answer me!” bellowed His Imperial Worship.

     There was a thump as the Imperial Chair hit the floor.  The security shield made a tiny sound of “fissssh” as they shut down.

     The Emperor moaned, rolling left and right.  He had not actually gotten out of this chair in several weeks, but he remembered how it was done.  It seemed a dreadful imposition, besides being in some ways a capitulation to that pirate and this revolting slave ship.  Imagine an Emperor having to walk simply because a computer went offline!

     He leaned back in the chair.  He would just wait, then.  The Sheriff would send someone to him.  Then he’d kill her.  Her and a dozen of those engineers who had assured hi that this heap of rust and rebellion was a really good ship.

     He crossed his ankles.  Then he uncrossed them and sat up sharply as a voice, deep and vibrant, declared, “We’re all alone.  Are we?  Yes, we are!”

Shifting Shirts

     We were so busy in history class in my schooldays that we hardly ever got past about 1928. The older and more cynical I get, the more I wonder if this was intentional.  In my day, kids were exposed to an ongoing debate on the relative merits of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt among our elders, and the teachers may simply have wanted to keep out of it.  So Fashion History was neglected beyond a few pictures which gave the impression that voluminous fashion as seen above was universal until World War I, when everyone realized that was silly and shifted immediately to something lighter.

     Like this.  It was as if the ladies cut their skirts and hair short one evening in early summer and never looked back.

     The facts, which we could have found at the library, was that there was an intermediate period, during which silhouettes slimmed down.  (No, we are not going to discuss whatever that is on her head.  Hats are a whole nother species for discussion.)

     As our postcard cartoonists were well aware, this was the era of the S Curve.  That slender silhouette was excellent for emphasizing two particular erogenous zones, and designers (as well as cartoonists) were game to make both obvious.

     Even conservative fashions kept the backside firmly pushed back, as it had been in the grand days of the bustle.  The only difference now was that there was less scope for strapping on reinforcements.  (Designers were eager to help out with that too, of course.)

     Within the bounds of human construction and variation, however, that wasn’t really where added material was required.  It was above the waist where the S Curve could become difficult.

     To balance the S Curve, more material was needed topside.  So designers obliged with the Pigeon, or Pouter Pigeon, design.  This added bulk to balance the S.  (Yes, I had to say that, but I’ll do my best to behave now.)

     Wherever fashion goes, cartoonists are sure to follow, so postcards began to boldly push chests where no chests had gone before.  The not very subtle S Curve became even less subtle in their hands.

     As mentioned hereintofore, no artist was more entertained by what other fashion historians call the “drooping monobosom” than Walter Wellman who, adding the flared skirt and pompadour, turned the S Curve into a kind of feminine cavatappi.

      This, by the way, is what the blouse looked like in repose, in a less cartoony style.

     You may, if you are that sort of person, be congratulating our fashion designers in rendering the chest as unthreatening, subdued, and unerotic.  I would call this type unobservant, since you haven’t been considering the cartoons seen above.  You are also reckoning without the male mind.

     AND you are selling our designers short.  Here is the Peekaboo Blouse of the era, which shows you can have your cheesecake and…I forget what I was going to say.  Anyhow, this allowed for massive amounts of fabric where fashion required while still providing eye candy.

     You are also reckoning without the fact that people move around.  If you look at this playful couple from the waist up, you will have no trouble picking out Adam from Eve.  Eve knew this.

     World War I probably did have something to do with the finish of the fashion: people had to cut back on the amount of fabric they needed during austere times.  The S Curve DID linger until the 1920s.  At that point, when suddenly everyone was considering the erotic suggestions of knees, ladies were finally allowed to stand up straight and we moved on to the extremes of the Boyishform Bra.  But we will fuss about that some other day.  At least we got this off our chests.

Fishing for Affirmation

     It has been a while since we discussed fishing postcards.  These were wildly popular in the middle of the last century, when people stopped sending postcards the way our modern generation sends texts, and instead made postcards a vacation staple: something you sent to the folks at home while you were on a fishing trip.  I have no shortage of fishing postcards in my inventory, and thought we could discuss them whilst I subtly, so subtly advertised my wares.

     But I had someone comment on this blog, saying that if I really wanted to acquire more than half a dozen readers for each column, I needed to sign onto the Affirmation Style.  I have seen plenty of videos among the ticks and tocks of modern technology which were made just to tell me my troubles are fleeting and my hopes and dreams achievable.

     So why not?  Let’s cast you, dear reader, as the fisherperson and your troubles as the fisher’s quarry.  The person fishing has the advantage of technology and brains, while the fish is merely a force of nature.  So look over the postcards above and realize that you CAN defeat those worries and that stress.  It’s just a matter if application.

     If you apply your talents and brains to work instead of worry, you will find your stress flopping on the dock.  Your troubles are no match for the human brain, just as these fish cannot hope to achieve the upper hand.  Heck, fish don’t even HAVE hands.

     You are brave, you are talented, you are the kind of person who can fry red snapper in Mountain Dew.  (Remind me to pass along that recipe if ever I decide to write a food blog.)  You are no more to be defeated by rando tribulation than the skillful fisherman is to be defeated by a mere creature who dines on worms. (I was going to close this paragraph with an image of a fish smacking its lips, but you should SEE the websites that came up when I tried to Google “fish lips”.  But never mind: we will persevere in spite of setbacks.  It’s what we’re talking about, after all.)

     All we need to remember, dear reader, is that if we take arms against a sea of troubles (Meant to put in a reference to fish in the sea here, but it doesn’t seem to work.  We shall sail on.) and we will find al those things that make us apprehensive dwindling away, shrinking before the power of our non-negative thinking.  Stand up to those sardines of sorrow and cry “Can it!”  (THAT will never show up on a T-shirt, but no matter.  It’s the thought that counts in these meditations.)

     Though the idea might seem laughable right now (I hope), the day will come when you sit down to a delicious dish of your former worries sauteed and served up, and call out “More fries!   These shadows from the past are too small to nourish a hard-working angler!”  The way your troubles will melt into nothingness before your combined courage and spirit will leave you hungry for MORE challenges.  You will reach for your rod and reel instead of the aspirin and antacids the next time worries splash around you.

     I hope this helps.  Now that we have realized that our problems can never overcome us if we just show the wit and wiliness of an average sportsman, we can move on to my next problem.  What life lessons can I teach you from all these old postcards with chamber pot jokes?

Dragonshelf and the Drover XLI

     Bott pushed the light blue card into the slot next to the fountain of lager, bracing for disintegration.  “You’ve been a great crew,” he said, his eyes on the card.  One last push, and it was in as far as it would go.

    And nothing happened.

     “Mebbe it’s nothin’ but a foods computer, Cap’m,” said Bassada.  “Order up some pretzels.”

     “Try it the other way ‘round,” said Louba.  “Can’t float outa here hangin’ onta pretzels.”

     Chlorda reached for his hand.  He shook this off and considered the rush of lager.  This was a dark place to die, and drowning in beer would not have been his chosen way to go.  But what he’d said was true: he saw no point in living just as the Emperor’s plaything.

     Bassada twirledher breathing mask on two fingers.  “Well, what’s next?”

     “Allus thought swimmin’ through beer’d be sumpn I could do, if I got a chancet,” Louba noted.

     Bott reached down for hs communications card.  “Ship.”

     “Don’t blame me, lummox.”

     He took a long breath.  “Ship, I believe I’d prefer yellow lights.”

     Chlorda splashed a step back to stare  “What….”

     The room seemed to change shape as the lurid lighting was replaced with beams of bright yellow.  Bott had to turn his face away from the bright reflections on the rising liquid.

     “Well, boost ma bustier!” Louba shouted.  “Atta cap’n!”

     Chlorda laughed out loud, and slapped her hands through the lager.  “Now that our captain is emperor on this ship, we’ll have to kiss his feet!”

     “Can’t see his feet,” Bassada replied.  “Lemme kiss sumpn I can reach!”

       Bott ignored all of this, beyond ducking Louba’s hug.  “All right, ship.  Shut off the fountains, please.”

     “No need to pretend you have manners, lummox.  You’re Imperial now.”  The great arching spouts of red lager slowed, and stopped.

          Bassada grabbed up a glass floating by, scooped up a goodly quantity ofg lager in it, and lifted it high.  “Here’s ta da Cap’m!  Bottsy fer Empra!”

     The other Klamathans looked for glasses.  Louba, seeing none, settled for a hatbox.  Bott did not join the toast, less because he was its subject than because all he wanted at his mouth right now was the communications card.  “Now, please open the quickest route to the Dragonshelf, without setting off alarms or letting in the troops.  Make sure there are plenty of card slots along the way, in case I need to change an order.  And bring…the librarian to her ship as well.”

     “You don’t want much for your nickel, lummox.”  The closet that had been broken open let its shelves descend into a long staircase.  Bits of it seemed to be missing, but the rest looked functional.

     “Just open something in the ceiling when we reach it,” Bott said, as the end of the staircase splashed down.  “And listen, if the Emperor ordered any more copies of the…of Nubry, get rid of them.”

     “You tell ‘em, Cap’n!”  Louba applauded with well=-lagered hands.  “Order us up a pizza while yer on a roll!”

      “Anything else, lummox?”

     Bott watched part of the ceiling slide back, ready to dodge if the Drover overdid it and dropped the phony Dragonshelf on top of them.  “Any suggestions?”

     “What would you say to shutting dow the power to this section?”

     “Will that help?”

     “Oh, I think so.”

     Bott tried to think of some reason to object.  “Go ahead, then.  But we’ll need lights to get up that staircase.”

     “There are lights in the breathing masks.  Of course, a lummox would probably throw his away.”

     Bott leaned down to hunt for his discarded mask just as the lights went out.  He froze into position, but all he found approaching him was a gradually growing light from Bassada’s mask.  Chlorda’s face appeared next.

     ”These ain’t made fer normal-size thumbs,” Louba complained, sliding her hands to find the light switch on the mask.

     “They were,” said Chlorda.  “That’s the problem.”

     The gold stood on tiptoe to light her companion’s mask.  “All right,” said Bott, “Let’s get up there before His Imperial Worship thinks of a way around this.  I’d better go first.”

     He reached to remove the light blue card from its slot.  Chlorda pushed a floating crystal cowbell out of the way and sloshed to his side.  “Captain, wait.”

     Bott looked up, his hand still on the card.  “Why?”

       “Captain, what if it’s another trap?”

     A green hand slapped against a green forehead.  “Not again!” cried Louba.  “Up to her knees  booze an’ she wants a cleaner glass!”

     Chlorda’s underteeth were against her upper lip. “What if the ship is pretending to help us, only to lead us into a trap?”

     Louba scooped up two handfuls of lager and sloshed them over the gold.  “Ya gots nerves like unto a white-tumped balloon poodle!”

     “Sticky-tongue’s gotta point.”  Bassada splashed over to the trio.  “Even a brain ’at teensy kin have an idea in it.  Empra’s not gonna leave us have a real way ta give orders.  Mebbe we oughta take the downstairs.”

     Bott considered the debris-filled lager lagoon. “I say we go up.  Even if it is a trap, we’re no worse off then we were before.  And I’m going first.  Keep your lights on me.”

     The leading edge of some stairs crumbled a bit underfoot, but it was no more than an inch of each.  In fact, Bott could have climbed even faster, in spite of the wavering light from the bobbing heads behind him.  But the noise was beginning to worry hm.

     He lifted the communications card again.  “Ship,” he whispered.

     “I know, lummox but I can’t do much about it.  When the power shut off, they were released from their barracks.  You were supposed to run into them the next time you entered this room.”

     “Were all these people and things aboard when I took command?” he demanded.

     “Stole the ship,” the Drover corrected.  “Not many.  Most of them are from the Imperial Menagerie and regular troops His Imperial Worship has trained for action if there’s a chance for a game like this.”

     “Are these regular soldiers?”

     “I think so.  It’s dark.”

     “What’s on, Cap’m?” called Bassada, from below.

     He waved to the crew to come closer.  “Keep as close together as you can.”

     From somewhere above, a voice called “There’s a light!”

     “Keep yer eyes on!” a voice of command replied.  “There’s a lotsa nasty surprises in here.”

     Bott studied the Klamathans, estimating how long this shelf would hold the weight of everyone.  “When I give the signal, follow as fast as you can and go for cover under the ship.  Until then, point all your lights at me.”

     “Can do,”: said Bassada.  “Whatcha gonna pull on ‘em?”

     “Sssshh.”  Squaring his shoulders, he marched up the last of the stairs, his face still, serene.

     As that face came over the last of the staircase, he could just see the forms of soldiers coming up the staircase which had descended on the opposite side of the wall.  This meant his crew would have no trouble getting down to the floor.  It also meant these troops would have no trouble climbing to meet them.

     “What is it?” came a voice from the rising company.

     “Shoot it afore we finds out.”

     Bott raised his arms slowly, his face still impassive, showing he was unimpressed by the suggestion.  He wished he had a mask with a light on it, so as to see their weapons, at least.  That might give him an idea of which way to jump if this didn’t work out the way he had it planned.

“Think mebbe we has to pray to it?  Is that what it wants?”

     “Le’s kill sumpn as a sacrifice.  Like maybe…it.”

     “Let all await the blessings of Violata!” he intoned, dropping his voice an octave for greater effect.  He wished he had inherited his father’s voice as well as this jacket.

     “Yeah?  What blessing’s ‘at?”

     Bott let one arm drop, pointing toward his feet.  Hoping their eyes were following that hand, he let the other dip into his grenade satchel.  “That which awaits below.  That which awaits below for all who have served well!”

     There was a shuffling of feet.  Just his luck if he’d found troops from a planet that believed in an evil underworld.  “What’s waitin’ down ‘ere, oh mighty Violata?” asked a voice, not quite in belief but not completely in mockery either.

     Bott folded his arms, a grenade in one hand.  He raised his chin, fully aware how exposed his throat was as a result.  But maybe that would impress them.  He let them wait in silence for a count of three, and then flung his arms wide.

     “Free beer!” he shouted.

      A roar rolled from the now advancing troops.  “Now!” he shouted to the Klamathans, diving for shelter under the ship he’d landed on the top of this cube.

     In moments, bodies were pressed against his.  “Wotta performance, Cap’m!” shouted Bassada, a hand on each of his thighs, “Wotta performance!”

     “That cleared the path, Captain,” Chlorda agreed, “You were an inspiration.”

     Only Louba was discontent.  “Looked like nice, clean folks, Cap’m,” she sighed.  “Don’t spose us has time ta join ‘eir party.”

Well, Goll-lee

     In olden days I was acquainted with a young lady I refer to as the Dumpster Cinderella.  This is not the place to go into ALL of her qualities and quiddities, but one of her goals in life was spreading the word about Real Jazz.  This was a musical form which she felt ceased to exist around 1932, when jazz went all new-fangled.  She wrote articles (or, more often, article-long letters to editors) and took her recordings and her message to any audience which would listen.  She succeeded beyond her hopes with high school music classes.  She found the kids genuinely interested in music new to them: they asked intelligent questions, and inquired where they could find more Real Jazz.

     So she frequently did follow-up lectures, with recordings the kids hadn’t heard the first time.  And she came to me once with a problem.  Not to ask my advice, since, as usual, she had made up her mind, but simply to add strength to her own arguments.

     “Some of these songs are really raw,” she told me.  “The performers were way too frank about race and sex, especially sex, for me to play these for high school students.”

     “I don’t know how much rap and hip-hop you listen to,” I said, “But I have a feeling they won’t learn any new words.”

     “Oh, these are instrumentals,” she assured me.  “But I don’t dare play them because the kids could look up the lyrics online.”

     It is easy to make fun of the Dumpster Cinderella (believe me) and her caution, but I have, in my hunt through archaeological comedy, run into similar warnings and cautions.  Leafing through a college newspaper of the later nineteenth century, I found a note that although they welcome articles and stories written by students, they would not tolerate the use of terms like “Shucks”.  I was taken aback by this, as the term in my own day was used by comical backwoods types.  Gradually, the reason dawned on me.

     “Shucks”, like “Shoot”, which I found banned in other periodicals, is a euphemism for a biological product found frequently by the roadside in that distant century of horse-drawn vehicles, but never never mentioned in polite society.  And on the principal that everybody who saw “Shucks” would know what word was meant, the euphemism was banned too.

     In my own time, I had teachers who reacted with horror to children who exclaimed, “Jeez!”  In their ears, this was profanity, as it was short for a longer sacred name.  The same was true in some postcards I have received, which are a little cagey about using the exclamation “Gee!: a similar abbreviation, or simply short for “God” (a word that couldn’t, like “Devil”, be used on many radio networks through the middle of the twentieth century.)

     Banning these cover-ups was slow in leaving us.  Walt Disney’s Pinocchio received token resistance when it referred to the nameless cricket character by a similar euphemism.  By my time, in spite of teachers who banned “Jeez”, we sang “Blue Tail Fly” in music classes without a hint that the phrase “Jimmy Crack Corn” was anything but a nonce phrase like those Fa La Las in “Deck the Halls”.  Of course, with our steam-driven cell phones and no Internet, we had no place to look this up.

     Nowadays, as we move further into the age of dysphemism, in which we not only avoid using euphemisms but try to come up with an even more offensive phrase, I wonder what will happen to the poets of euphemism, those folks who preferred to bellow “Fudgesicles!  Drippy, sloppy fudgesicles!” and “Well, goshdang the goldarn thing!”  Or will some musical combo decide to write bold brave songs using once-banned terms like “Gee whillikers” and “Shucks”, and start a whole new trend in rock, rap, or even Real Jazz?  (Dibs on the Fudgesicle Blues.)

MIDWEEK FICTION: LITTLE HOUSE IN THE HAUNTED WOODS

     “This the place to buy magic stuff?”

     “Yes indeed, Madame.  Welcome to the shop.  How may I assist you?”

     “Well, I’ve inherited my sister’s house.  She made it out of gingerbread to bring in livestock for her larder but there was a little accident with some supper that got the drop on her.”

     “I’m sorry to hear that, Madame.  What….”

     “It wasn’t so bad.  They managed to cremate her before they left, so I didn’t have to waste time on the funeral.”

     “Congratulations, Madame.  And how….”

     “Just tossed her across the garden.”

     “Yes, Madame.  May I ask….”

     “Really good for the asparagus.”

     “I will keep it in mind, Madame.  How may I help you?”

     “What I really need is a good mystic appetite suppressant: a ring or amulet I can wear.  Hate taking pills.”

     “Living in your sister’s cottage….”

     “She must not have had my sweet tooth.  I can’t help taking a bite out of the shutters when I go out to poison the birdbath, and at midnight, when I need a little something….anyway, I’m eating myself out of house and home.”

     “I see, Madame.”

     “I’m the first witch in the family to eat her own back door.”

     “It is not….”

     “Twice.  I…”.

     “I can see where that might be awkward for you, Madame.”

     “The deer wander in and out and the rabbits always seem disgusted that I’m not some sweet little lost princess.”

     “I think I know….”

     “I’d start singing to let ‘em know they’ve got the wrong cottage, but the only song I know is Ninety-Nine Bottles of Brew on the Porch.”

     “This book of spells and potions….”

     “And I keep losing my place and starting over.”

     “This volume contains a number of magical recipes for repairing such cottages.”

     “That’s all very well, but what I’ll look like after weeks of chewing on my balconies….”

     “Here, for example, are spells and recipes which would gradually replace the gingerbread with pretzels, salted nuts, and corn chips.”

     “Aha!  I can eat the house and replace it with something that doesn’t tempt me so much!”

     “It might tempt certain visitors, though, especially if they can smell that you’re cooking chili or making salsa.”

     “So the cottage would still bring me main courses.  And if the little brats are loaded with salted stuff, they’re less likely to have the stamina to run away.  Maybe I’ll make jerky out of those dratted bunnies and bucks, too.”

     “Perhaps, Madame.  I’m charging four gold pieces for the book, and you should probably be warned that such a cottage is likely to attract every huntsman and woodcutter for miles around.”

     “I hadn’t thought of that.”

     “The author included a couple pf recipes for beer in the back.  Apparently, SHE found running a bar a more reliable way of making a living than luring in lost children.”

     “I like it.  And anyone who falls behind on their bar tab winds up on the menu!”

     “That would discourage….”

     “I can see the sign: ‘Special today: Roast Bum’.  Ha!  Or I could call it ’Fell Behind’.”

     “Four gold pieces, Madame.”

     “Or the Weak End Special.”

     “Thank you, Madame.  I wish you the very best with your….”

     “Or Best Seat In the House.”

     “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Madame.  I can see you want to get right to work.”

     “Or even….”

     “Thank goodness THAT door is made of wood.”

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XL

     No matter what Bott pushed or pulled or thumped, the ship was going down, down.  He had defeated his old ship, filled with librarians, and that was all the amusement the Emperor intended for this particular prop.

     “Everthin’s dead, Cap’n,” Louba told him.  This was unnecessary: the smiling flowers on the console were wilting as he watched.

     The BBB-44 bounced to a wobbly seat atop a white cube.  “Okay,” said Bott, rising from the seat and hitching up his pants a bit, “Let’s go see what else we can do for fun.”

     Bassada was closest to the door.  She jerked her hand back as this shut with a bang.  “Don’t s’pose ‘ere’s much point in knockin’.”

     “Not a bit,” Chlorda agreed, falling with her blue counterpart.  Louba tried to hang onto her sonsole as the floor slid the rest of the way back.  A creak and a crack sent her after the rest of the company.

     “Waddya know?” cried Bassada, splashing as she sat up.  “Private swimmin’ pool!  ‘at empra’s gittin’ cushy in his ol’ age!”

     Bott stood up.  The pink water sloshed around his shins.  Pink mist swirled up from the surface but was refused as the ceiling slid shut.  He saw no walls, but assumed he was inside the cube the BBB-44 had set down on.

     “Where to next, Cap’n?” Louba inquired.

     He hadn’t noticed any doors on the outside of the cube as they descended, but four prisoners starving to death in a pool of pink wouldn’t draw many bets.  He reached into the grenade satchel for Nubry’s book, and checked a random page.  “Straight ahead until we find something.”

     Chlorda was nearest to the direction he pointed.  She put out a hand.  “Very well.  I’ve found a wall.”

     The others stepped to her side to verify that it was, in fact, a wall.  Bott wondered if the water was warming up, or if that was just embarrassment.

     “Well, grab me by the ear an’ use me fer a plunger!”  Squatting, Louba jabbed a finger at a thin dark line.  “It ain’t jes’ a wall, Cap’m!”

     “She’s starvin’ agin,” sighed Bassada, dealing the seat of the broad overalls a swat.  “Nuthin’ vut a stummick on big round legs.”

     “Hey, it was a thirsty fight!”  Louba drew her hands across the food computer slot.  “Blues don’t drink nuthin’ but ol’ bathwater, but I could use a shloorp.”

     Bott drew out his card.  “This will probably get us anything in inventory.  What’ll it be? Cup of tea?”

     “Spose we gotsta laugh when Cap’n Bottsy makes a joke,” said Louba, arching one hand at him, little finger down.  “Ha ha ha.  Computer, gimme some Qonors Red Limpid Lager.”

     “Ballul.”  Bassada wrapped both arms around her own stomach.  “Stuff tastes like grass outa yer county dump.”

     “At’s whatcha drink, ha?”  Louba patted the card in the slot.  “Gimme a glass.”

     “Yer a waste o’ space, greengridle.”  Bassads spotted the door opening.  Four glasses with green and gold rims and absolutely nothing inside were revealed.

     Louba snatched one up and glared down into it.  “If you can find the wide end, Luv, that’s the one you want,” said Chlorda, reaching past her for another empty tumbler.

     “All I learned about follerin’ you around is little bitty ends.  Right now I’m lookin’ fer ‘at booze.”  Louva leaned down to peer inside the little foods delivery chamber.

     She plopped backward into the pink pool as a red fountain of the requested beverage came shooting from the little cube.  Bott’s shoulders rose as little doors around the room popped open and further fountains of lager shot into the room.

     “Good job.”  Bassada patted the green head.  “Got yerself more booze’n yez kin swaller, even wit’ yer big mout’.”

     Louba rolled mournful eyes up to her commander.  “Want me ta try, Cap’n?”

     “Say no, Cap’m.”  Bassada shook her hand at the green Klamathan.  “She’d git it all drunk up an’ ‘en flood all over us.”

     Bott was not paying much attention, frowning at the red fountains filling the chamber.  “There’s another way out.  The Emperor hasn’t won nearly enough money yet.”

     The mist was thickening around them.  “Anything could be swimming in here,” Chlorda noted, lifting first one foot and then the other.

     “Don’ get bit by a watersnake, yellacheeks,” said Bassada, kicking at the rising red lager.

     “Better that they should watch for you,” the gold replied, with a little curtsy.  “If you sat on them, they’d be flatworms.”

     The level of the beer continued to rise.  “Do hates ta see good booze gittin’ watered down,” said Louba, opening her mouth and leaning into the fountain.

     Bott watched her fill her mouth, marveling at her capacity.  At the same time, he was considering those ast three grenades in his satchel.  There was plenty of maze yet.  If he just waited, he was sure to find the method the imperial game scientists had built into this latest peril.

     But all that back and forth dogfighting with the other ship had inclined him to action and, anyhow, patience wasn’t one of his best skills.  Picking the middle specimen from the tumble of ancient grenades, he flipped away the key and flung it at the highest point he could see on the wall.  The four prisoners crouched in the beer, Bassada stealing a few sips as her eyes followed the grenade.

     Entirely without fuss, the grenade flattened itself against the far wall, stuck out little gray legs, and started to climb.

     “Paint half muh teeth black an’ call me a piana!  Bugs got inta ‘at one, Cap’n!”

     The prisoners rose to follow the grenade’s progress.  It was leaving little black footprints as it scuttled toward the ceiling.  “Get back down!” Bott whispered.  He wasn’t sure in this atmosphere, but smoke seemed to rise from each little footprint.

     With a spark and a flash, the grenade vanished.  The footprints smoked for another second, and then flashed like their begetter.

      “Whoopsadaisy!” cried Bassada, ducking away from not only fragments of wall which had been neatly curt away but also a cascade of multi-colored boxes.  Bott nodded.  It would have been too simple to blast a hole into the big room.  They had instead opened up some kind of storage closet.

     “Mus’be sumpm here we kin use.”  Louba popped lids around her, revealing a high black hat with an orange plume, a stuffed firgan, and a broken ficdual.   “Huh.  Like ‘at time I walked inta a blue shower room: seein’ lotsa trash.”

     Chlotda stepped toward a particularly nice gold and purple case and stumbled, landing facefirst in the pink pool.  She came up shaking lager from her hair, and pointing at a shadow in the beer.  “A door down there, Cap’n…er, Captain.  Maybe we’re expected to try an underwater maze.  Or underbeer.”

     “Ha!”  Bassada checked the particularly large box between her knees.  “Divin’ stuff!”

     She pulled out an oval helmet attached to a gold tank.  She pulled out three more helmets of assorted colors and sizes, and handed these to her companions.  Bott studied his, his face coming together in a scowl.

     “A pirate,” Captain Bish told him once, “Owns the ground he walks on.”  Bott checked the oxygen tank, and then tossed the whole thing over one shoulder.

     The Klamathans stared.  “Not yer size, Cap’m?” Louba inquired.

     “He’s going to keep doing this.” His eyes followed a brown flowerpot floating past.  “Finding ways to nearly kill us and then slipping us a way out so he can nearly kill us in the next room.  The grenade didn’t spoil his game; he’d have shown us another way to get to these masks.  Maybe it’s better to drown than keep giving him things to laugh at.”

     “Cap’n Honey,” said Bassada, coming over to catch up his discarded helmet and deal him an encouraging swat on the back.  “I betcha he has a really good laugh fer ‘em as drowns wit’ defiance.”

     “The longer we last, the bigger parade he’ll throw when we die.”  Bott kicked at the flowerpot and missed.  “Seen the processions?  The high blue banners with his picture on them?  Didn’t he congratulate himself when he captured you?  He sure did when he burned the High Priest of Hutch, and every time this big new slave ship of his made port.  He and his big blue ship and his pigs and his bann….”

     He shoved a hand in his pocket.  The Imperial processions marched through his brain, bands in blue uniforms fanfaring cages filled with shivering prisoners, and the bodyguard decked out with bright blue accoutrements and….

     “Ship,” he said, raising his communications card to his lips.

     “Sorry, lummox.  I don’t believe there’ll be time enough to teach you to swim.”

     “Ship, didn’t you tell me I had one of three Imperial override cards?”

     “He listens!  The lummox listens!  I am quietly agog.”

     The Klamathans had moved in, all obviously wondering what he was up to.  He hoped they wouldn’t figure it out before he did.  “Ship, would it do any good if I shoved that override card inro a foods computer slot?”

     “If that’s the most entertaining place you can think of to shove it.”

     “It’ll be a gold and ivory card,” said Chlorda, stepping forward.  “Those are his family colors.”

          “But his favorite seems to be light blue.”  Bott slid that card from his deck.  “At least I should get a pretty good dinner before I drown.”

     “WE drown,” said Bassada, dropping her helmet into the lager.

     “Cap’m.”  A green hand rested gently on his wrist.  “Is ‘at a food slot?  Computer didn’t make any wisecracks.  It wasn’t but a trap, ta water us and see if we grew.  Why’nt we jus’ swim fer it?”

     Bott looked from her to the light blue card, nodded, and raised the communications card again.  “Ship, he must know I have this.  He could have reprogrammed you to recognize it, and just electrocute me if I use it.”

     “He could have, yes.”

     “Ship.  Did he?”

     “Try it.  You won’t take long to find out.”

Bygone Bywords

     That blog about the sitcoms some people call “Commercials” generated some interest, and a couple of complaints.  Some people expect quizzes about TV commercials to involve slogans or jingles, while other people complained I said next to nothing about the products involved.  Well, we CAN do something about that.

     Of course, every product was the invention mankind had been waiting for, bnever mind the wheel, and naturally each was better than those Brand X competing types.  But can you remember what else they were.  True, most were “enriched”, and, inevitably, “new and improved”, while almost every cereal was “part of a balanced breakfast”.  But can you recall these other features enough to identify the product?

     Which product HAD  

1.a fistful of peanuts

2.two scoops of raisins

3.red white and blue balloons on the wrapper

4.one white and one charcoal filter

5.a sparkling drop of retsyn

6.a special recessed filter

     Which product WAS

7.fruit juicy

8.squeezably soft

9.magically delicious

10.good to the last drop

11.the dogs kids love to bite

12.the quicker picker-upper

13.mountain-grown

     What product SAID

14.Snap, Crackle, Pop

15.Butter

16.Its own name when opened

     ANSWERS

1.Snickers

2.Kellogg’s Raisin Bran

3.Wonder Bread

4.Tareyton cigarettes

5.Certs mints

6.Parliament cigarettes

7.Hawaiian Punch

8.Charmin bathroom tissue

9.Lucky Charms cereal

10.Maxwell House coffee

11.Armour hot dogs

12.Bounty paper towels

13.Folger’s coffee

14.Kellogg’s Rice Krispies

15.Parkay margarine

15.Fisher peanuts (or Busch beer)

Touched-up Territory

     I was old enough when I found out about it that I was more surprised than shocked.  The distance between what we are shown and what really is was known to me from an early age, at least to that time in second grade when I picked up the little cup of cherry Kool-Aid and found out it was tomato juice.  As always, part of the blame for that is mine: why on earth would our lunch ladies be giving us cherry Kool-Aid anyhow?  What we WANT to see takes precedence over what’s really there.

     So today we are going to talk about scenic landscape postcards which have been somewhat amended to show the world as postcard publishers think we want to see.  We will NOT be discussing pure works of art, like the collage “Water Tank” by Michael Langenstein at the top of this column, nor the massive Brooks Catsup bottle in Collinsville, Illinois, which is really there and has not been touched up at all in this postcard.

     What tipped me off was a series of Our City at Night postcards like this one.  If you have ever tried to get a glowing and romantic a picture like this on your own camera, digital or otherwise, you know it takes patience and care.  But postcard companies put these things out by the dozens.  Were their photographers that good, or did each company have one picture-taker who specialized in night scenes?  Even more complex are the night-time street scene postcards, where a busy district in town has been photographed during the evening theatre hours.  How was this even possible, given the unpredictability of tragic and weather?

     Well, you can go into the archive of some of these companies and find out. (Curt Teich did a lot of this work, beautifully.)  They DID have great photographers.  These photographers would take a picture by daylight and then have the artists in the design department paint the sky a nice midnight blue and draw in a brilliant moon.  Or take that photo of the theatre district and paint lights in the windows and a beautiful evening sky.

     Our ancestor discovered the process for portrait paintings in the nineteenth century.  It takes a long time for a person to sit still and be painted, so why not take a photo, blow it up to a size suitable for hanging on the wall, and have an artist paint OVER it.  Properly done, no one can tell how much of the picture comes from the original, and how much from the mind of the artist.  More authentic than leaving the whole picture up to the painter and more flattering than the version from the camera.  (I’m not sure I’m seeing ANY of the original photo in this beautiful sunset.)

     Of course, once one has discovered the process, anything is possible.  A company in New England produced dozens of small town city views presented as photographs of what the town would look like in a hundred years, with subway entrances added to quiet corners on Main Street, airships and aeroplanes above.  Similar enjoyment of the joke goes on to this day, with some improvement in technology.

     None of these postcard companies are trying to lie to us.  Especially with those night photographs, the goal is to show us reality while omitting the details of actuality that get in the way.  I am not at all certain this view of San Francisco is an honest to goodness photo.  But as Vincent Starrett wrote, after all, “Only those things the heart believes are true.”

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXXIX

     The ship that might be the Dragonshelf dropped almost straight down on the nasty-looking orange and black one.  Nubry had known Bott could fly, but watching it from here made that really obvious.  If only he hadn’t been a pirate as well!  Her eyes moved to where the captioned dialogue was rolling up the screen.

     DEAR ME, CAPTAIN DARLING.  COULD WE NOT RECRUIT THEM AS CREW?

     NO, SWEET NBASSADA.  EVEN COPIES OF THAT INSANE LIBRARIAN MIGHT RUIN OUR TRIUMPH.

     THEY’D INSIST ON KEEPING THE BOOKS.  AND TJEY OUTNUMBER US.

     This sort of thing had upset her at first.  But there was no sense in getting angry.  She wasn’t likely to live long enough for it to make a difference.

     All that she asked was to be completely dead before she saw them destroy the books she had sworn to protect and defend.  It couldn’t be long now.  The cuffs were surely all that was holding her up.  One foot stretched out in front of her as if she were climbing a very shallow staircase.  Her hands were clasped behind her head, pressing forward just enough to hurt.

     I THINK WE SHOULD JETTISON THE BOIOOKS AS WE LEAVE, TO CONFUSE THE SENSORS WHEN THEY TRACK US.

     I SAY SET THEM ALIGHT AS WE DROP THEM, TO CAUSE A DIVERSION.

     I DO HOPE YU LADIOES AREN’TGOING TO ARGUE.  WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO AND YOUR CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP IS KEY TO OUR SUCCESS.

     “Bilstim controls!”

     Nubry frowned.  That had been Bott’s voice; she hadn’t run across that particular expletive anywhere else.  Were they fighting right under this room?  Would she have heard it, even so?  And why didn’t it show up on the monitor?

     She rolled her eyes to the Emperor, who was using a long blue swizzle stick to stir small ichikans who struggled in a solvent which destroyed their bodies without killing them.  He reached for a straw.

     OH, WE COULD NEVER ALLOW PETTY QUARRELS TO INTERRUPT OUR DEVOTION TO YOU,DEAR CAPTAIN.

     THERE, CAPTAIN.  GIVE HER A SHOT UP THE TAILPIPE, THE WAY YOU DID

     Nubry’s head jerked to one side.  She’d heard him say “flowers”.  She knew she’d heard him.  Ignoring what felt like a million red hot needles in every muscle of her body, she turned her head, looking for some alternate source of communication.

     Catching the movement, His Imperial Worship glanced at his captive and then back at the battle.  “Pity your captain doesn’t realize one of his ladies is feeding us secrets.”

     “Is she really?”  That black spot on his earlobe: it wasn’t the only spot on his face but it was the only Kydczak earphone.  She strained to hear: Bott was saying something about circles.

     WE SHOULD POUR ACID ON THE BOOKS AND MAKE THEM REALLY DANGEROUS WHEN WE DROP THEM.

     “Only a tiny fraction of what she tells us is any use.”  The Emperor took a long drag on the straw.  “But the odds were so goof I thought I should bet on one of them making it out alive.”

     “Why are you wearing….”

     A hand slid from his beaker to the controls.  Nubry’s face was lowered to the level of her waist.  Her ankles came sharply together and then spread left and right.

     She felt herself moan as her feet were jerked above her head.  But her brain was busy with that tiny earphone.  If he was listening to the prisoners with that, all the words on the computer could be lies.  Bott probably wasn’t planning to destroy the books at all.  Why would he?  No pirate would destroy something he could sell.

     Her nose itched; ti would run if she wasn’t so dehydrated.  It could simply be something else, someone else’s voice.  Or the words on the monitor could be delayed, while the Emperor was listening to them in real time.  And she wasn’t going to live to find out.  As that long hand reached for the nastiest button on the console Nubry recited to herself the Schlatter Seed Carakog Inventory.  Maybe if she realty concentrated, she could ignore the pain.

     The thumb held its position just above the vital control.  Imperial eyes had turned to the screen.  Nubry was about to cheer at the sight of the perhaps-Dragonshelf moving around behind the wicked-looking other ship, but remembered in the nick of time that she was possibly very angry at the pirate.

     The tiniest vibration in the big eggshell told her the Imperial thumb had not forgotten its duty.  A second later, her face was on fire, and the familiar flaming claws were tearing flesh from her back.

     The Emperor took another drink.

     Hot coals forcing themselves up through her throat told her the new copy was about to arrive.  She forced herself to think of something else, to concentrate as she had during long days on the Dragonshelf.  Having read a number of books on mental powers, she had tried to force characters from other books to materialize, and talk to her.  She wanted to ask Lilu Lemonleaves why she had never, in the course of fifteen novels from Decledy, trust her husband.  She intended to discuss weather with rain deity Kilaui Dumm-Dumm, and introduce Susan Sedan to Justin Alastair.  Right now, if she worked hard enough, perhaps she could materialize the reading room around herself, and be aboard the Dragonshelf, ordering a conversation between people who never got to meet.

     A figure was hovering just on the edge of reality.  The copy, of course: Nubry’s powers of concentration had never materialized anything even this ephemeral.  She had always felt a little guilty about forcing dialogue into the mouths of other people’s characters.  As her spine seemed to roll into a little ball, cracking and splintering in phantom stabs of red agony, she decided to stop feeling gulty about it.

     “Move back,” she thought, staring at the spot where the copy was growing but not allowing her eyes to focus.  It was the same method she used when trying to materialize Lily Lemonleaves.  “Move back.”

     Suddenly the copy was solid, and suddenly the trap door opened.  But between the suddenlies, the copy rolled one leg over the other and moved away from the opening in the floor.

     Nubry glanced at the emperor.  At first she thought he was enrapt by the way the big ship of black and orange (hereditary colors of the hawk people of Wilnead) was desperately trying to elude the maybe-Dragonshelf.  But no: his eyes were fixed on a smaller monitor showing the current odds, his hands flexing to change the conditions in the big white room in any way that might enhance his profit.

     Looking down, she saw the poor girl trying to get up.  She did not look at all well.  His Imperial Worship must have twiddled his controls to make her look even worse.  Surely she, herself did not look so raw, so flimsy.

     The Nubry on the floor tried to get her legs under her.  She had very thin legs.  She opened her mouth as if she had to cough.

     “Don’t cough,” the original Nubry thought.  The copy swallowed.

     On the big screen, the library ship rose swiftly against the bottom of the larger one, trying to smash it against the ceiling.  Nubry nodded; she might have tried that.

     “Catch your breath,” she thought, as the other Nubry struggled to rise.  She wondered why the copy didn’t look back.  It was really quite interesting.  One to thing watch oneself moving on a screen; the brain could explain that away.  Seeing Nubry in the flesh, leaving bloody streaks as she dragged herself along the floor, was an entirely other thing.

     Yet here she was, dangling in mid-air high above the light blue tile.  The copy ought to take a look,  Nubry’s whole career was based on sharing interesting things.

     Now look: the copy’s mouth was open and her tongue was hanging out.  Where did that come from ?  She never did such a thing.  Did she?  Well, hardly ever.

     QUIT PLAYING WITH THEM, CAPTAIN SWEETNESS.  JUST FINISH THEM OFF.

     YOU JUST WANT ME TO PLAY WITH YOU SOME MORE.

     Nubry frowned.  Interesting as this was, there ought to be something useful she could do with it.  That she could give instructions to the copy was an achievement, perhaps the last of her life.  But what did she want it to do?

     The emperor nodded as the possible Dragonshelf swooped.  The other ship was way too low as it came across those tall cones.

     “Go up and take those controls away from him,” Nubry thought.  “Take them away.”

     The copy’s head turned toward the Imperial chair, her tongue still hanging out, her torn chest heaving with deep breaths.  The Emperor did not look back.  The large ship pulled up too late.

     “Hurry,” thought Nubry.

     The copy’s shoulders bounced.  Muscles tensed in her legs.  The bottom of the orange and black ship was torn open.

     “Boy hey!” cried the Emperor, as the copy leapt.

     Both Nubrys shrieked as the copy hit the forcefield around the Imperial chair,  One stopped sooner than the other.  The surviving Nubry watched the copy fall to the floor, emitting smoke in a dozen places.

     “My compliments,” said His Imperial Worship, as the copy fell into ash.  “I’ve never had a duplicate try to take my life.”

     “I never….”  Nubry found her head being pulled up and back.  Her hands were still behind her, but her elbows drew in.

     “It must frustrate you more, but I need to inform you this shield has neither a battery to steal nor a cord to cut.”

     Nubry tried to explain again that killing him was not her plan, but found herself unable to speak through a neck bent this way.  Her lips rose in a smile she didn’t intend as an Imperial hand swept across a spherical control.

     “You must not hurt enough.”  He spun another sphere on the console.  “Let’s augment the power and see if that doesn’t occupy your mind.”

     The Imperial thumb hit the Start button again.