Miss Feng’s plan was clear. The unlucky ladies would almost certainly be languishing under lock and key in the harem. Moreover, the harem’s main entrance would be guarded by palace eunuchs, or possibly chaperone bots. However, she speculated, the servants’ passage would still be open—if we could get past the inevitable guard on the back door. We would find the chaperone-bot, I would pretend to be a fainting misplaced maiden, and Edgy and the Toadster would play the part of palace security guards who had found me and were taking me back inside. Getting out would be a little harder, but by then Uncle Featherstonehaugh’s tipple should have taken effect . . .
Something moved in the tunnel ahead of me, and I froze, knock-kneed in fear. I don’t lack moral fiber, it just gives me the runs: I swore under my breath and stopped dead in my tracks as Toadsworth ran over my hem. “What is it?” he buzzed, quietly.
“I don’t know. Shh.”
Holding my breath, I listened. There was a faint shuffling noise, a breathy whistling, then a clicking noise from the dark recesses of a twisty little side passage. A shadow moved across the floor, and paused. I sniffed, smelling an unholy foulness of stale sweat and something else, something familiar—then I blinked, as two evil, red-rimmed orbs brimming with pure, mindless hate loomed out of the darkness toward me.
“Jeremy!” The delinquent dwarf reared back, waving his tusks drunkenly in my face, and I could see his trunk begin to flare, ready to blow a betraying blast on the old blower. There was only one thing for it—I reached out and grabbed. “Hush, you silly old thing! If they hear you, they’ll kill you, too!”
Grabbing a mammoth by the trunk—even a hungover miniature mammoth who’s three sheets to the wind and tiddly to the point of winking—is not an adventure I can endorse if you value a quiet life. However, rather than responding with his usual murderous rage at the universe for having made him sixteen sizes too small, Jeremy blinked at me tipsily and sat down. For a moment I dared to hope that the incident would pass without upset—but then the gathering toute came out suite, and the foul little beast sneezed a truly elephantine blast of beer-smelling spray in my direction. I let go instinctively: he struggled back to his feet and began to reverse shambolically into the tunnel, with a mistrustful glare directed over my left shoulder. I tried to scuttle after him, only to be brought up short by the Toadster, who was still parked on my skirt. “Dash it all, men, follow that mammoth!”
With a brain-rattling crash, a fiendishly stealthed black chaperone-bot jumped over my suddenly stationary form, slipped on the snot-lubed floor, tumbled head over heels into the far wall, and crashed to the ground in a shower of spiked armor and vicious knives. I nearly jumped right out of my skin—indeed, I believe separating me from my integument had been the sole purpose of its acrobatic display.
Before I could gather my disguise and my wits and run, Edgestar revved up to speed and whizzed past me. Vrooming like a very vroomy thing, he jumped on the bally bot in a most unfriendly manner! It was a sight to see, I can assure you. The chaperone-bots of al-Matsumoto look a lot like Edgestar in humanoid form, only less convivial and disinclined to a discreet afternoon tipple when they could be out and about, briskly ripping unfortunates limb from limb. But being bots, they lack the true elan and esprit of a clankie, and even a hungover tea trolley of a posthumanoid is a fearsome thing to behold when it gets its cricket box on. Jeremy scampered off into the bowels of the palace honking tunelessly; meanwhile, old Edgy bounced up and down on the combat robot’s abdomen, squeaking furiously and spinning his wheels. They had cute little cutting disks on their inner rims! The chaperone-bot lay on its back, stiletto-tipped legs curling over and inward to stab repeatedly at the assailant on its abdomen, but Edgy was too fast for it. Presently it stabbed too enthusiastically for its own good—and Edgestar yanked hard, pulling the stinger under the edge of a gaping inspection panel. With a triumphant squeal of brakes, he leapt off the chaperone-bot, transforming back into humanoid form in midair as sparks began to fly and an acrid smoke poured from his assailant’s joints.
“Jolly good show, that transformer!” I exclaimed.
“Pip-pip!” said the Toadster, regaining some of his joie de vivre.
I consulted my map again. “The back door to the harem is just around the corner! I say, old chap, I think you’ve cleared the last obstacle. Let’s shuftie, shall we? If we’re to be home by tea, it behooves us to get our move on.”
I FIND LAURA IN QUESTIONABLE COMPANY
Well, to cut a long story short, there I was in the harem of the Emir of Mars’s younger brother, surrounded by adoring femmes, while my two fellows from the Club made themselves scarce. “Darling,” Laura trilled, reclining in my arms, “I do confess, I am so touched! Hic.”
“I know, my dear, but we can’t stay here.” I quickly outlined what I knew. “Miss Feng thinks the evil vizier is conspiring to build resentment against the oppressive and harsh autocracy of the al-Matsumoto clan, and intends to use it to foment a revolt.”
“But the al-Matsumotos aren’t harsh and autocratic!” complained one of the ladies, a cute blond bimbettebot in filmy harem pants and tank top. “They’re cute!” The room descended into giggles, but I frowned, for this was no laughing matter.
“They’ll be harsh and autocratic by the time Ibn Cut-Throat’s spinal crab is through with Abdul! Dash it all, do you all want to be decapitated? Because that’s what’s going to happen if the vizier seizes power! He won’t have any use for you—he’s the chief eunuch! He’s an ex-man, and his special power is chopping off heads! He probably thinks testosterone is something you catch from sitting too many exams.”
“Oh, I’m sure I can fix that,” a dusky six-armed beauty informed me with a flick of her aristocratic nose. “I didn’t study regenerative medicine for nothing.” Her arch look took in Laura. “Why don’t you just take yourself and your tin-plate tart and leave us to sort out the matter of succession? She was only going to go down hard in the talent-show round, anyway.”
“Pip-pip!” called Toadsworth, sailing from one vaulted side chamber to another in pursuit of a giggling conical debutante, a silk favor knotted around his monocular. “Party back at my pad, old chap! Bring a knobbly pal! Inseminate! Inseminate! Bzzt!” I looked away before the sight of his new plug-in could scar my retinas for life. You can’t take these clankie stallions anywhere in polite company, they can’t so much as wink at a well-lubed socket without wanting to interface with it—
“She’s right, darling, we must be going.” Laura laid her elegant head on my shoulder and sighed. “Oh, I do declare, my feet are killing me.” I scooped her up in my arms, trying to see over a faceful of frills.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I told her. “But what are you doing here anyway?”
“Hush”—she kissed me, and for a moment the world went away—“my brave, butch, bullish Ralphie!” She sighed again. “I was going to hold out until after the race! But I had just checked into the Hilton when I received a telephone call saying there was a gentleman waiting to see me in the lobby.”
Jealousy stabbed at me. “Who was it?” I asked, cringing and glancing away as Edgestar rolled past, having transformed himself into a tentacularly enhanced chaise for the amusement of the blond bimbettebot, who appeared to be riding him around the room using his unmentionables as a joystick.
“I don’t remember,” she said dreamily. “I woke up here, waiting for my prince—you! I do declare—but Toshiro said he was arranging a surprise, and there’d be a party, and then it all went a little vague—”
I can tell you, I was freezing inside as I began to realize just how disoriented she was. “Laura, what’s gotten into you?”
“Not you, not lately!” she said sharply, then lapsed back into dreamy incoherence. “But you came to rescue me, Ralphie, oh! He said you would. I swoon for you! Be my love rocket again!”
I saw a small silver receptacle on a nearby table, and my heart sank: she’d clearly been at the happy juice. Then I sneaked a peek at t
he sockets on the back of her neck, under her hairline, and gasped. Someone had planted a hedonism chip and a mandatory override on her! No wonder she was acting out of sorts.
I plucked the ghastly thing out and dropped it on the floor. “Laura, stand up!” I cajoled. “We’ve got to be leaving. There’s a party to be going to, don’t you know? Let’s go.”
“But my—” She wobbled, then toppled against me. “Whoops!” She giggled.
“Hic.” I might have pulled the chips out of the fryer, but my fish was still thoroughly pickled.
I hadn’t expected this, but Miss Feng had insisted I take a reset pill, just in case. I hated to use the thing on her—or rather, Laura hated it, and this invariably led to a fight afterward—but sobriety is a lesser evil than being trapped in a castle run by a mad vizier and subjected to mood-altering implants, what? So I pressed the silver cap against the side of her neck and pushed the button.
Laura’s jaws closed with an audible click, and she tensed in my arms for a second. “Ouch,” she said, very quietly. “You bastard, you know I hate that. What’s going on?”
“You’re on Mars, and we’re in a bally fix, that’s what’s going on. This Ibn Cut-Throat fellow’s a thoroughly bad egg. He’s sneaked a spinal crab onto old Abdul, I think he picked you up because he wants a handle on me, and doubtless that’s why the rest of the Club’s all here—we’d be first to notice a change in our boy Abdul’s behavior, wouldn’t we? The cad’s obviously set up the sticky wicket so he can bowl us all out in one inning.”
“Dear me.” Laura stood up straight and took a step away from me. “Well, then we’d better be going, darling.” She straightened her attire and looked around, raising one sculpted eyebrow at my dishev elment. “Do you know how to get out of here?”
“Certainly.” I took her hand in mine, and led her toward the central gallery. “I’m sure there must be a way out around here somewhere . . .”
“Over there,” offered bin-Sawbones, pointing. “You can’t miss it, head for the two hulking eunuchs and the evil vizier.” She pushed me hard in the small of my back. “Sorry, but business is business. When you’re trying to marry the second-richest man on Mars, you can’t afford to be too picky, eh?”
JEREMY PULLS IT OFF
The exit was indeed obstructed by Ibn Cut-Throat and his merry headsmen—with Abdul in tow, glassy-eyed and arms outstretched, muttering something about brains. And Ibn Cut-Throat had spotted us!
One thing I will credit the blighter with: his sense of spectacle was perfect. “Ah, Mister MacDonald!” he cried, menacingly twirling the antichemwar vibrissae glued to his upper lip. “How disappointing to see you here! I must confess I hoped you’d have sense enough to stay in your room and keep out of trouble. I suppose now you hope I’m going to tell you all my plans, then lock you in an inadequately secured cell so you can escape? I’m afraid not: I shall simply have you cut off shortly, chop-chop. My game’s afoot, and none will stop it now, for the ineluctable dialectic of history is on my side!”
“I don’t care what your dastardly scheme is, I have a bone to pick with you, my man!” I cried. The two headsmen took a step forward, and Laura clung to me in fear—whether feigned or otherwise I could not tell. “How dare you kidnap my concubine on the eve of a drop! That’s not cricket, or even baseball, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I see you in any of my clubs, even by the tradesmen’s entrance!” Meanwhile, Laura thrust a shapely arm inside my abaya and was fumbling with something in my dinner-jacket pocket; but my attention was fixed on the villain before me.
“Clubs.” The word dropped from his lips with stony disinterest. “As if the degenerate recreations of the oligopatriarchal enemy would be of any interest to me!” I shuddered: it’s always a bad sign when the hired help starts talking in polysyllables. One of his nostrils flared angrily. “Clubs and sports and jolly capers, that’s all you parasites think of as you gobble down our surplus wealth like the monstrous leeches you are!” I’d struck a nerve, as I could see from the throbbing vein in his temple. “Bloated ticks languishing in the lap of luxury and complaining about your parties and fashions while millions slave to fuel your banquets! Bah.” Laura unwrapped her arm from my robe and covered her face, evidently to shield herself from the scoundrel’s accusations. “When we strive to better ourselves, you turn your faces away and sneer, and when we bend our necks, you use us as beasts of burden! Well, I’ve had enough. It’s time to return your stolen loot to the toiling non-U masses.”
My jaw dropped. “Dash it all, man, you can’t be serious! Are you telling me you’re a . . . ?”
“Yes,” he grated, his eyes aflame with vindictive glee, “the crisis of capitalism is finally at hand, at long last! It’s about seven centuries and a Great Downsizing overdue, but it’s time to bring about the dictatorship of the non-U and the resurrection of the proletariat! And your friend Abdul al-Matsumoto is going to play a key role in bringing about the final raising of class consciousness, by fertilizing the soil of Olympus with the blood of a thousand maidens, then crown himself Big Brother and institute a reign of terror that will—”
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how the Ibn Cut-Throat Committee for the Revolution intended to proceed, because we were interrupted by two different people: by Laura, who extended her shapely hand and spritzed him down with aftershave, then by Jeremy.
Now, it helps to be aware that harems are not exactly noted for their testosterone-drenched atmosphere. I was, of course, the odd squishie out. Old Edgy was clearly hors de combat or combat des whores (if you’ll strangle my French), and the Toadster was also otherwise engaged, exploring conic sections with the femmebot he’d been chasing earlier. But aside from myself and Ibn Cut-Throat—and, I suppose, Abdul, if he was still at home upstairs what with that crab-thingie plastered to his noggin—there weren’t any other remotely butch people present.
Jeremy had been in smelly, sullen retreat for the past week. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was in musth, that state in which a male mammoth or elephant hates and resents other males because the universe acquires a crystal clarity and his function in life is to . . . Well, Edgestar and Toadsworth got there first, minus the trumpeting and displays of aggression, but I’m sure you understand? There were no other small male mammals present, but Jeremy was well aware of his enemy, and his desperate need to assert his alpha-male dominance before he could go in search of cows to cover—and more importantly, there was one particular scent he associated with the enemy from long mutual acquaintance. His enemy smelled like me. But I was shrouded in a blackly occlusive robe, while Ibn Cut-Throat had just been doused in my favorite pheromone-enhanced splash. And whatever Jeremy’s other faults, he’s never been slow to jump to a conclusion.
I do not know what passed through the 80 percent of Jeremy’s cranial capacity that serves as target acquisition and fire control, but he made his choice almost instantly and launched himself straight for where Ibn Cut-Throat’s crown jewels had once resided. Proboscide ans are not usually noted for their glide ratio, but in the weak Martian gravity Jeremy was positively areobatic, and he aimed straight for Toshiro’s tushie with grace and elegance and tusks.
“Tally-ho, old boy!” I shouted, giving him the old-school best, as Laura took two steps smartly forward and, raising her skirts, daintily kick-boxed headsman number one in the forehead with one of her most pointed assets—for her ten-centimeter stiletto heels are not only jolly fine pins, they’re physical extensions of her chrome-plated ankles.
Now I confess that things looked dicey when headsman number two turned on me with his ax and bared his teeth at me. But I’m not the Suzuki of MacDonald for nothing, and I know a thing or two about fighting! I threw the abaya back over my head to free my arms, and pointed Toadsworth’s inebriator—which he had earlier entrusted to my safekeeping in order to free up a socket for his inseminator—at the villain. “Drop it! Or I’ll drop you!” I snarled.
My threat didn’t work. The thug advanced on me, and as he
raised his blade I discovered to my horror that the Toadster must have some very strange fingers in order to work that trigger. But just as the barber of Baghdad was about to trim my throat, a svelte black silhouette drew up behind him and poured a canister of vile brown ichor over his head! Screaming and burbling imprecations, he sank to the floor clawing at his eyes, just in time for Laura to finish him off with a flamenco stomp.
Miss Feng cleared her throat apologetically as she lowered the empty firkin to the floor. (The brightly painted tiles began to blur and run where its Bragote-damp rim rested on them.) “Sir might be pleased to note that one has taken the liberty of moving his yacht round to the tradesmen’s entrance and disabling the continental defense array in anticipation of Sir’s departure. Was Sir planning to stay for the bombe surprise, or would he agree that this is one party that he would prefer to cut short?”
I glanced at Ibn Cut-Throat, who was still writhing in agony under Jeremy’s merciless onslaught, and then at the two pithed headsmen. “I think it’s a damned shame to outstay our welcome at any party, don’t you agree?” Laura nodded enthusiastically and knelt to tickle Jeremy’s trunk. “By all means, let’s leave. If you’d be so good as to pour a bucket of cold water over Edgy and the Toadster, I’ll take Abdul in hand and we can drop him off at a discreet clinic where they treat spinal crabs, what-what?”
“That’s a capital idea, sir. I shall see to it at once.” Miss Feng set off to separate the miscreants from their amorous attachments.
I turned to Laura, who was still tickling Jeremy—who by now was lying on his back, panting—and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t he sweet?” she sang.
“If you say so. You’re carrying him, though,” I said, ungratefully. “Let’s hie thee well and back to Castle Pookie. This has been altogether too much of the wrong kind of company for me, and I could do with a nightcap in civilized company.”
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