After the waiter left, Daleria asked, “So what do you do with your retirement time, when you're not creating great art, that is?”
Festock passed from stiff to openly fidgety. He repositioned his napkin several times and rearranged his cutlery twice before responding. “Not much. I try and take long walks. They say those are good for one's general health.”
Good for the health of an immortal? Mirraya recognized that as an evasion, not an answer. “What rank were you slated to egress with to Prime?”
Daleria shot her a quick questioning glance.
Festock seemed to melt a little. “Beg pardon?” he managed to groan.
“What rank in the egress were you supposed to join? It's a rather straightforward question if you ask me,” Mirri responded coolly.
“I … I don't recall asking,” he replied almost inaudibly. He pulled out his handheld device, nearly dropped it, then set in back in his pocket. “Will you look where the time has gone. Dally, I hate to eat and run, but I must.” He stood so quickly his chair toppled backward to the floor.
“I was scheduled for Torment,” stated Mirraya.
Strain was evident on Festock's face as he labored to understand why she felt the need to mention that factoid.
“I'm actually quite upset,” she added when it was clear he was not going to respond.
“I'm … I'm sorry to hear …” He leaned his entire body to one side. “I'm sorry, why are you telling me this?”
She gestured to the recently vacated chair on the ground. “Have a seat and I'll tell you an interesting story.”
“No thank you. I really must …”
“My brother departed with the first, and it appears to be the only rank to be able to leave.”
“Your brother?” he mumbled.
“My dear brother. He's an idiot. That's why I feel the need to pass along my sad story.”
Festock visibly trembled. “I'm sorry yet again. Your dear brother's an idiot?”
“Yes, top-notch.”
“Ho … how does that reality intersect with my plane of existence?”
“Perhaps you know him. Gorpedder?”
“Everyone knows him.” He looked uncertainly at his chair, then back to Mirraya. “Your brother?”
Mirraya angled her face. “See the family resemblance?”
“I suppose so, now that you mention it.”
“Here's my point,” Mirraya said as she stood, uprighted his chair, and gestured that he be seated.
He sat reluctantly.
“Gorppy has as much functioning brain matter as one would presume an aggregation of boulders to possess. I asked Vorc if I could switch from Torment to Rage, you know?”
“I didn't … excuse me, how would I know that?”
“You might have heard the rumors. Anyway, Gorppy and I have always gone on transheavals together. Every single one. Do you know why?”
“No, I clearly do not.”
“Because he's an idiot.”
Festock toiled with that seeming an impenetrable non sequitur.
“Don't you see? I accompany him to protect him. A fool like my dear brother is quite likely to get himself killed rampaging and wrecking.”
“Ah.”
“Since I am clearly present, you can see that Vorc denied my request. He offered some gibberish about pace and order, fairness to the whole not the parts. In any case, my brother is almost certainly going to die and I sit here idle, waiting for the bad news.” Mirraya's face became steely with anger. “Do you know how that makes me feel, friend Festock?”
“How does it make you feel?”
“Uncharitable toward our current center seat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Our universe was infinite. By definition no one place was distinct or unique from any other. That said, if there was a backwash, a lost cause, the actual middle-of-nowhere kind of spot, the planet Drivel was that exception to the laws of nature. It was a hot, barren world with little water and only a thin atmosphere. It was also the residence of the most dull, inarticulate, and foul-smelling race of sentients ever. Ever. The locals called themselves the Drivel. Yes, the creatures were so unimaginative that they took the planet's name for its own. And mind you the reverse was not the case. Such a sad, inadequate lot.
After the Drivel evolved from the muck, they naturally entered their version of the Stone Age. Though it took them fifty-five times longer than any other comparable species to do so, they finally passed into the equivalent of the Bronze Age. For the dreary Drivel, that was the living end. They put down cultural stakes so deep and so numerous that they never even conceived of, let alone welcomed an Iron Age. Thank you very much, they'd have said. Bronze was way better than stone and we're good. Don't let the societal-stagnation door hit your butt on your way out.
Similarly, they never advanced from the hunter-gatherer nutrition scheme like any respectable fellowship. Drivel imagination, as paltry and sparse as that oxymoronic term was, didn't allow for the expenditure of effort if immediate results were not rewarded. As long as there was anything edible out there, no Drivel of Drivel was going to plow a field or milk a cow. The very thought was abhorrent to their DNA. Work hard for food one might produce down the road, at a later time? Mental vomit, that was what they'd label such a notion. In fact the proof, the nail in the coffin of the Drivel's lack of motivation and industry, was their reproductive rate. Genetically the females could produce an offspring every six months, give or take. But many females never gestated. Copulation was too much bother for both them and the males. Even, and please excuse this potential mature nature of the anthropologic disclosure, they rarely masturbated. Yeah, even that was too … laborious.
Imagine, if you will, the introduction into that pallid civilization of three ancient gods. The brothers Trace One and Trace Two, along with their companion Bingo, chanced upon Drivel during their extended romp of pillaging and destruction. Trace One was a god of excessively poor taste. Think velvet glow-in-the-dark Elvis paintings [https://goo.gl/Jb2reR] or 2 Columbus Circle, New York [https://bit.ly/2DsPtJb]. Blame Trace One. Trace Two was the god of anything sent by public conveyance that became lost. His picture should have been in every dead-letter office in existence. Bingo was the god not of a game favored by elderly ladies and played in church basements, but rather of forced labor. Go figure. Of the trio he was the most surly and disagreeable by far.
As the team approached Drivel, they collectively salivated. Theirs was a planet so disorganized and unsophisticated that the only resistance put up would be with rocks and sticks. Well those and a handful of bronze swords, but those took industry to produce so were in short supply. All other worlds they had ravished put up a decent defense. There were even a few occasions that they were lucky no god lost his life. But Drivel and the Drivels were a complimentary dessert buffet.
They stuck together after landing. They generally split up, but the pickings were so blatantly rich they actually suspected an ingenious trap might have been laid. No culture could be so incompetent, so inept as this one seemed to be. Boy were they mistaken in their cultural over-generosity.
The three walked tall, shoulder to shoulder toward the nearest grouping of hovels. As basically stick people, for Trace One and Trace Two the tall part was easy. What they lacked in visual presence they made up for in meanness and ill-will toward others. It wasn't until they stood in the center of Village that anyone seemed to take note of their anomalous presence. The name Village was given to the place because it was too fussy and laborious to name any village as anything other than Village. All of them were so dubbed.
Trace Two raised his pencil-thin arms and shouted, “Fear and worship us, mongrels of Drivel.”
Slowly that announcement drew a sparse crowd. Perhaps a third of the adults in Village bothered to answer such a seemingly provocative summons.
Bingo screamed in rage. “Who among you is the leader? That person will be the first to die.” He then laughed the laugh insane gods were supposed to laugh.
&
nbsp; The assembled rabble looked amongst themselves.
“Speak, worthless scum. Who leads you?”
Clumbford, the least witless resident of Village, responded. “No one is actually the leader here. Er, we once had one they say, but no one seems to recall the specifics. I certainly don't.”
“Well I guess that makes you the leader,” snarled Trace One. “You will be the first inbreed to suffer our endless wrath.” Trace Two stepped as threateningly as a stick figure could toward the hapless Clumbford.
As he neared his prey, someone called out, “Now hang on.”
Bingo located the objector. He pointed a stick finger at him, for he was a stick figure also. More a stick-wolf then a stickman like the brothers, but inexcusably thin nonetheless. “You beg for mercy for your kin, you lumpen? Well there will be none. His soul is mine and yours will soon be mine.” He sounded actually quite evil and credible.
Trace One advanced again.
“Ah, wait, what are you thinking?” responded Forlor. The second least witless Drivel spoke up again. “I have no objection to you desouling brother Clumbford there. It's just that if he gets to be our leader so easily, I want to be the leader instead. It ain't fair appointing him boss over me without my getting a crack at it. By the by, what are the perks of the office?”
“You get to be the one who dies horribly first,” replied Bingo.
“That's not much, but it's something. Any other less consequential benefits?” asked Forlor thoughtfully.
Bingo looked to his brethren in confusion. He shrugged at them.
“No, you base fool. We kill you, we eat you, and you are no more. What bonus could you possible imagine as a result of our consumption of you?”
“Are you kidding?” yelled Babbél, a younger male of Village. “There's lots of gravy associated with you eating Clumbford. Forlor too for that matter.”
The brothers three began to shoot each other furtive, nervous glances.
“Name one dividend, citizen,” challenged Bingo.
“Citizen, is it? How dare you. I'm as uninvolved and complacent as the next guy. Citizen my mother's grimy ass.”
“Huh?” said all three Cleinoids as one.
“But that's a separate matter, you insulting me,” snapped a haughty Babbél. “If you eat old Clumbford he gets one over on the rest of us. Yeah, what, you three so stupid you don't think we all know you all know why?”
Due to weakness in his knees, Trace Two sat down.
“You have tested the patience of an ancient god and you have lost. You will forever suffer because of your impiety,” screamed Bingo. The veins on the sides of his head swelled to a larger diameter than his neck. He charged Babbél.
“No, you have to stop him,” howled Grandles, an elderly female of Village. “Eat me, not these lazy males.”
That stopped Bingo dead in his tracks. “I am confused,” he wheezed. “I hate being confused. Why does everyone want to be eaten instead of anyone else. Are you all daft?”
Forlor stepped forward. “You serious?”
“I … I think so. Yes. Yes I am. Why do you welcome death?”
Babbél looked to Forlor, who glared at Grandles. She opened her arms in confusion toward Clumbford. The population as a whole was incredulous.
Forlor continued. “Look, none of us welcome death. What … what kind of slackers do you think we are?”
Bingo, ever vicious of the tongue, was about to ask how many types of slackers there were, but fortunately thought better of it in time.
“If you eat, say, Forlor there,” he gestured to which Forlor he was discussing, “he doesn't have to go hunting and gathering to eat.”
Bingo sat next to Trace Two, mute as a rock. Trace One was able to stammer, “I … if I ea … eat th … th … that male, y … yes he need not … not labor t … ttt … to eat. I will gr … grant you tth … that.”
“See, you do get it,” beamed Forlor.
Trace One crumbled to the ground by the other two.
“If anyone's getting a pass from gathering bitter nuts and unripe fruit, it should be me,” exclaimed Grandles. “I'm the oldest and most withered occupant of Village. I forbid you scoundrels from favoring anyone over me, you scalawags.”
Trace One was able to respond weakly. “What if we promise in advance to eat every single one of you. Will that be okay? Is that fair?”
“Yes,” agreed Bingo. “No one will be left alive when we're done horrifically demolishing Village and stuffing everyone in their proper turn down our throats.”
“No,” decried every resident present.
“What would it take?” pleaded Bingo.
“Well, I suppose you could eat us all at the same time. That way no one would have a leg up on anyone else.” That was Forlor speaking. Second least witless, remember?
Trace One staggered to his feet. “Now that's just unfair. It's unreasonable, arbitrary, and frankly preposterous.”
“What?” Grandles asked snidely. “You young fellows look like you have proper appetites. What, are you some of those analrexic people we heard tell about?”
“Auttie, I keep telling you it's anorexic, not analrexic. The condition has nothing to do with rectums. Get over rectums,” chided Sallas, heretofore silent but overburdened by the elderly female's misuse of language and potty preoccupation.
“No,” protested Trace Two. “Why just last planet I ate six thousand groveling trolls in one day.” He smiled at his companions.
“So eating us all together so as not to show favoritism will not be a problem,” stated Forlor.
“Come on,” Trace Two whined. He slipped fingers on alternate sides of his mouth. In as funny a voice as one would presume given the contortion of his lips, Trace Two said, “Wook at my mouf. How bib do you shink it is?”
“Look, the young and the moronic,” snapped Grandles, “my patience with your excuses and physical inadequacies is over. If you can't do one little act so as to make our hideous consumption bearable, I suggest you get on your high horses and leave.”
The threat piqued Bingo's sense of wrath. “Or what, old female with such a small brain yet large a mouth?”
“Or else? Lords and lice you three are dense. If you don't agree to eat us at the same time and you don't bug off we will, to a male, female, and child, kill ourselves.” She allowed that warning to sink in. “Yeah, sure, you can pound down rotting corpses all day long, but it won't be bothering any of us.”
“No,” scoffed Forlor in agreement, “we'll all be dead so who'd care, you big bullies?”
“B … bu … but you … you'd all b … be dead,” Trace One stuttered yet again.
“What kind of pitfall is that supposed to represent, losers three?” shot back Clumbford. “We're dead and gone so could care less, and we're all relieved of the burden of hunting, gathering, and listening to fools like you.”
As straining of credulity as it might have been, the inhabitants of Village gathered there together in a semicircle facing a trio of monsters and performed an act in concert. They all turned, bent over, and displayed their bare rumps to the Cleinoids.
“I think we should leave,” said Trace One to his brothers.
“Yes, definitely and soon,” agreed Trace Two.
“Me first,” shouted Bingo. “If we ate any of these wackos it might get into our brains.”
They popped to their skinny feet and exploded from Drivel, never to return to it but cursed to never forget it.
So much for the mighty Cleinoids.
Or, wait, maybe the Drivel of Drivel were not the societally incompetents they might have had you believe?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I always knew you had a pair of steel cojones, but hot diggidy dog you're a badass,” I exclaimed.
“Anyone else accusing me of having testicles would already be dead, Uncle Jon.”
“Then I'll assume you love me good,” I responded with a huge smile. I pointed at Mirraya as I looked to Sapale. “My little girl made the round
ball blink. She forced him to accept her.”
Sapale rolled all four eyes. “I know. I was sitting here with you when she told us what happened.”
“But I mean, dude,” I marveled.
“Uncle, it was not that bold a move,” Mirri replied. “If I scared him off I scared him off. It wasn't like he was going to turn us in.”
“Yeah, but I'm glad I sent someone who could think on her feet. That was brilliant. He's about to blow you off and you crack open his shell.”
“He actually has a shell,” said Daleria. “Please don't be so gross. I may want to eat again some day.”
“Learn at her feet, Dally. I said keep away from politics, and Mirri here bends the bull's horns by doing just that.”
“First off, don't call me Dally. Festock does and I hate the name. Second, it's kind of like you don't give me any credit. I might have secured his allegiance my own way in my own time.”
“Daleria,” I began, “it's okay to learn from a master. You don't need to defend yourself.”
“I suggest you drop it,” said Toño to Daleria. “It's impossible to alter the course of his mind normally. When he's agitated as he is now it's even harder. Let it be.”
“I will. You were impressive, Mirraya,” agreed Daleria. “You molded his behavior like a clay urn.”
“One does not grow to my age after having been schooled by Uncle Jon without learning to master the art of imposing one's will on others.” She nodded toward me.
“Roger that,” I said mostly to annoy Sapale with more military slang. “So you secured a second meeting. Where and when?”
“He said he'd simage me.”
“You sure that's not a don't-call-me-I'll-call-you?”
“No, he was serious. Serious and cautious,” replied Mirri. “I say a couple days, three at the most. He'll want to seem in no hurry, but I know he would love more support. He was needy that way.”
“You think …” Daleria started to ask. The question evaporated under Mirraya's withering stare of incredulity. “A couple—three days tops. I agree.”
“In the meantime we'll listen in on Festock's every movement, including bowel ones. You got that, Als? I want every detail of his life. If he's a double agent I don't want to walk into a trap.”
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