“Yep. Genuine leprechaun. Fairy. Mystical sprite. Elf. Magical being. Just like the little stories have always said. Don’t you people read?”
O’Malley sighed. “Apparently not enough. What’s with the stupid green suit and the hokey stick, then?”
Mr. Tibbles sighed back and looked as if he were deciding between vomiting and strangling him. “It’s all local. In Hawaii, we’re Menehune. In upstate New York, we’re little Indians dancing in the corn.”
“The Chinese claimed you were leprechauns, though.” O’Malley grinned.
Mr. Tibbles drew himself up to his maximum height. “The Chinese are capable of lying, you know.”
Then someone screamed and the ship jolted back into normal space as a new pilot qualified for short-term disability.
“What was that about?” Cassie gave him a puzzled look. The crew sprinted towards them shouting accusations, questions and pleas in frenzied Mandarin.
“A hunch.” O’Malley put up both hands and spoke fiercely in chopped Mandarin. «Tell Chief Han it will be done tomorrow, no sooner.» They bickered, and when O’Malley did not budge or negotiate they slunk away sullenly, obviously fearful of having to tell the Chief just that.
On night six, O’Malley found the biggest, warmest room possible, commandeered extra pillows and blankets and something that resembled solid food and made a fort of his swag. He left the door unlocked and ajar. When Cassie arrived, she did so wearing a particularly fetching gown of homemade lace.
“What’s it to be, blood or me?” Her eyes dazzled in the almost lightless room.
O’Malley looked up from reading a book on Irish folklore. “You can make a fairy circle in the room before we blast off tomorrow?”
She slid the door closed and locked it, her hand waving the latch closed from ten feet away. “Oh, yes.” She smiled and he felt enchanted. O’Malley shrugged and said no more.
On day seven, he lectured the pilots, warning them that if they came out of fourteen percent a second earlier than he asked them to, he would personally shuttle down, resign in front of Chief Han and blame them by family name. He advised them to take tranquilizers, rice wine, chew on wood or simply close their damned eyes-after all, they were flying through a vacuum. Whatever it took, they must not deviate course, slow down or interfere with his and Cassie’s doings. Oh, and if they didn’t like it, please feel free to call HQ right this instant and ask the Chief to replace him, since they had a much better idea. Strangely, no one argued and all seemed genuinely pleased that he had finally been so mean-spirited as to threaten them.
Then he went aft. He came upon Cassie finishing the circle, which she had cleverly disguised to look like any old flooring in any old space ship. “I’ll need a kiss.” She leant forward and he complied.
“For completing the circle?”
“No.” She gave him an enormous smile. “I just know I’m not going to get another chance if this works.” He shook his head and let the engineers strap him in.
Then the countdown, the usual rev up and the far less hysterical achieving of fourteen percent. Pop! Tibbles appeared and this time O’Malley unstrapped to greet him.
“I’m sorry, old friend.” He spoke formal Gaelic. “I was wrong to be so rude last time.”
Tibbles looked touched and Cassie nodded. “Well, alriiiight.” Tibbles blushed, clearly pleased to be appreciated.
“I really do believe in you, Tibbles. I want you to know that.” O’Malley gave him a curt bow, complicated by the lack of gravity. “I was wrong to not believe the old stories. Leprechauns do exist and I know, now, that so does magic.”
“It’s not entirely fancy physics, you know.”
“I know.” O’Malley started to pace. “It’s a quantum signature from a collective genetic unconscious.”
“Exactly.” Tibbles beamed. “I think you have actually learned something. And I thought you were totally stupid.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” O’Malley and the elf chuckled. “Shake? No hard feelings?”
Tibbles put out his tiny mitt and shook O’Malley’s vigorously. “You know, I’m hoping you people stop calling me here.”
“I think we’ve learned our lesson,” O’Malley assured him. Tibbles turned to go. O’Malley pushed a button on the wall. The ship instantly dropped out of the Pulse Drive, as if the pilots had been poised over the Kill button, punch-drunk and praying for the signal. Tibbles gave a low moaning wail.
“These are called handcuffs,” O’Malley explained, demonstrating that he and Tibbles were now firmly pinioned together by a chunk of metal.
“You can’t.” The leprechaun struggled, his legs kicking.
“Fairy circle.” O’Malley pointed to Cassie, who batted her eyelashes.
“I’m in big trouble,” Tibbles said to no one in the room.
“I want my pot of gold.” O’Malley eyed the elf.
“What?” The little man struggled. “Absolutely not.”
“Then you stay. I’ve got the Chairman of a very large media corporation who would love to put you in a nice glass box, shuffle you around and make a few billion credits off you.”
“You can’t, you won’t…” The elf started to shrink in horror, but he could not pull far since O’Malley had him suspended by the cuffs.
“Gold. It’s in the books. I want it.” O’Malley yanked the wretched leprechaun to emphasize his point.
“I can curse you,” the elf countered. Cassie coughed and Tibbles suddenly blushed. “If you hadn’t brought a witch with you.”
“But I did bring my own witch and my own fairy circle and now I have my very own leprechaun.”
“I don’t, I can’t get the gold right away.”
“Then I get pictures and the plastic box and a touring elf show, and you get to do stupid sprite tricks for the videocasters.”
“The price of gold is really, really low these days.” Tibbles bit his lip.
“You haven’t got anything other than that to offer,” Cassie said nonchalantly.
“And if I did?” Tibbles’ face lit up.
“I’ll take the formula for a working pulse drive, one that breaks the speed of light safely.” O’Malley lifted the gnome to near eye level.
“Painful.” Tibbles whimpered and his eyes teared. O’Malley did nothing but yank harder. They remained that way as the little man went through six colors, ranted, threatened, switched languages, and then finally sighed. “Okay.”
O’Malley handed him a notebook with an erasable pen. “Now.”
“I’m right handed,” Tibbles complained.
“We’ve got all day, don’t we, Cassie?” Cassie nodded and smiled. She crossed her legs making her little sucker-booties swish. Nobody said anything. Tibbles developed an amazing ability to write with his left hand.
When
the leprechaun had covered roughly twenty pages, he handed the pen and notebook back. “Okay.” He smiled wanly. “You won.”
“Great. Thanks.” O’Malley started reading the elf’s handiwork. “Now swear by Queen Mab, on your sacred honor and upon the sworn code of the fairies that all you have written is true and good, that you have in right faith given what is due and paid your debt.”
“You read the book.” Tibbles’ face drooped into despair.
“I read all the books, you little creep.” O’Malley yanked on his captive again. Tibbles wordlessly reached for the book, took the eraser, and fixed a dozen assorted diagrams, renumbered some formulas and took up another three pages with previously unwritten schematics. Then he handed it back, the look on his face totally defeated.
“Swear.” O’Malley prodded him.
“I so swear before Mab my Queen and my sacred honor, I have done as asked and the debt is paid. One pot of gold or its equivalent.” Tibble’s eyes lolled. “Bastard.”
O’Malley cuffed him. “Hey. Don’t talk like that in front of a lady. Apologize.”
“Sorry,” whispered Tibbles, his left foot making a pathetic figure eight on the floor. The cuffs unlocked at O’Malley’s cue.
Pop! Just like magic, the leprechaun was gone.
“You were planning this all along?” Cassie watched him closely, clearly impressed.
O’Malley shrugged as the crew began to shuffle in, looking for signs of leprechauns or explosions.
“Somewhere around the time I took to sleeping under tools and tables, it occurred to me to think of a way to capture the guy. I’m from Belfast, after all.”
“After all,” Cassie agreed. They tried to hold off the throng’s new bout of questions, which, strangely, were devoid of accusations or threats. Apparently, the Chief had either invested him with new powers or everyone’s desperation had simply given him a little breathing room.
O’Malley orchestrated the group. Scanned copies of the notebook needed to be made. For their part, the engineers did something capable and swift, using things with green lights that looked like pasta rollers. Whatever they were, in one sweep all the pages were read, digitized, filed and probably cross-referenced with footnotes.
Cassie began to ask a question, but a sudden gibbering excitement interrupted her. It appeared someone, either downstairs or on the starship, had realized what O’Malley had handed them. The engineers disappeared and the new pilot replaced them, his face stolid in resolve. He sputtered some harsh Mandarin at the pair, emphasizing the words with a hand chop.
“He said?” Cassie stepped closer to O’Malley. Did she do nervousness?
“Han wants us.”
Minutes later, O’Malley and Cassie found themselves unceremoniously shoved towards another chute and toppled down the elevator towards Level A and the Grand Boardroom.
Around twenty thousand miles above the planet, she muttered, “When did you figure it out?”
“The Hwa thing.”
“What’s a Hwa, anyway?”
O’Malley brushed a red curl off her forehead. “The old name the Japanese used upon arriving in China. It means dwarf in Mandarin. Until they became a modern power, the Japanese were the leprechauns of China.”
“They own half of the Moon now.” She curled closer to him.
“But, in the ancient subconscious they were, and to some extent still are, dwarves.”
“And…”
O’Malley snorted. “You never read Jung, did you?” The cabin was silent. “Protocols are individual sets of rules which have local meaning on a subconscious and thus, quantum level. That means the Faerie Contract would bind.”
“I thought you read comic books all day.”
“Well.” The elevator passed some kind of altitude marker. The Mandarin made little sense at their speed. “I subscribe to a few regular ones, but they’re monthly and that leaves me with a time lag at the end of the month.”
“Hwa?” Cassie came close enough that he lowered his voice.
“Well, Tibbles is some kind of alien-that’s probably a safe bet. He changes with perception. So what did the Chinese see? Hwa. They had to have sent a Japanese ombudsman first.”
“Who saw Japanese leprechauns.”
“The Ainu-I heard the paramedics haul Furikaki out of his office last week screaming about the Hairy Hill Men.”
Cassie positioned herself on his stomach. “You could have taken the gold, Mr. Ainu.”
He laughed and smoothed her hair lightly. “Price of gold’s real low these days.”
She jabbed him in a soft spot. “But why really?” The cabin gave a faint hum but he did not speak. She jabbed again.
“Okay.” He twirled a curl of her hair. “Between us?”
“Of course.” She kissed his arm.
“We’re the only ones, Cassie.”
“Only ones what?” She sat up.
“The only ones who have a positive relationship with faeries. The English get abducted, the Swedes get ravaged, the Japanese are contaminated, the Chinese invaded. Hence, the stretchers.”
Cassie’s face changed color. “Does Han know?”
O’Malley patted her leg. “One suspects he must. Pot of gold and all.”
“So why not something else?”
O’Malley’s eyes glittered. “The Irish invent star travel. Too good to pass up. What’s your excuse?”
Cassie rubbed her chin. “How do you know I don’t just like going really fast?”
He put his hands behind his head and chuckled. They fell silent. By the next altitude marker, they had fallen asleep.
When they arrived, a fleet of Dragon Ladies whisked them back into the sterile corridor and he was again outfitted with clothing, this time a terribly familiar blue pin striped suit. Even the tie seemed standard issue. The Secretariat ushered them into a small office where a beaming team of ten StarDrive executives welcomed them. Chief Han had opted for a black suit with, miracles, a cream and crimson tie.
“Sit.” All present sat. O’Malley waited in silence, thinking.
“You have placed us within scheduled parameters. Seventeen minutes ago, our crew completed the first faster than light voyage in human history, returning safely to the star base.” The other nine men beamed, clearly delighted and relieved. Han lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl. “Explain yourself.”
“Isn’t that StarDrive’s whole purpose?” O’Malley fiddled with his tie.
“But you are not StarDrive. You work on the second floor.” Han gave them a piercing stare. “Why did you help us?”
Cassie coughed. “The price of gold really is through the floor.” She shrugged and looked to O’Malley.
“She’s right.” O’Malley let go of his col
lar. “I’d probably make more with a modest raise, which I think one could reasonably expect for such work.”
“We’re not even paying Ms. Morgaine, although you can rest assured her sister now has extremely well-compensated employment for life.”
“Morgaine?” O’Malley turned to her.
Cassie smiled. “Pagan witch, remember.”
“And you, Mr. O’Malley,” Chief Han spoke as if punishment were being doled out, “we have decided to promote.”
O’Malley groaned, instantly filled with regret.
One of the executives set up a tripod with a large flow chart printed with impossible to read squiggles. He coughed, consulted a set of note cards and began, “As you can see from our corporate structure…”
Cassie rose. O’Malley panicked and reached out his hand.
Cassie pumped it. “I’ll see you later.” She started walking.
“You will?” His stomach began to act up. What if he had to wear a suit everyday?
“Magic,” she whispered in luscious Gaelic. He watched in anguish as his Cassie sauntered from the conference room.
Chief Han waited until she had left, then took over for the executive, droning on in grand gestures about some new position with enormous power and responsibility. But all O’Malley heard was “suit, suit, suit.” After several painful minutes it grew quiet. All the men stood. He stood. One by one the men shook his hand. Han patted him on the shoulder.
Dazed, he followed a feral looking Dragon Lady to his new office, now on the five hundred and seventh floor. He closed the door and whimpered. Some unknown lackey (the new Ombudsman?) had moved his gear into a larger and far more luxurious space. He had a window view, two potted plants and something antique in the corner. His only solace lay on the desk: an intercom box with “Fiona” handwritten on the peeling label.
Jim Baen’s Universe Page 65
